Long term rental, villa wanted in Chiclana, must have ADSL

Nic,

Whilst I agree with your sentiments, we initially will have to follow the guidelines as set out in the Resortalia letter.  Statutes can only be changed during official meetings.  I fully expect to see items on the agenda for the full AGM to change a few things, whenever that may be.

As things stand, there has to be a president for each block. Unfortunately, with the resort as it is, there will be a lot of blocks where no resident will volunteer to stand.  That means someone (an owner) will be appointed to the job, whether they want it or not.  On a new resort like this, that is not a very satisfactory outcome but it has to happen under Spanish law.

It looks like the main committee will be made up of the presidents of each phase.  But what happens if you have two erstwhile candidates for the main committee who live on the same phase, or even the same block, and are willing to stand??

We are in the early stages of the resort and things should become clearer within the next month – or two!

On a more general and dare I say taxing topic, I do not have an issue with €100 per month.  I do have an issue with payment as soon as one month after purchase.  PW have six weeks to do the snagging and you cannot furnish the apartment until they are finished.  Utilities are taking on an average of two months.  Some quicker, some later.   As you therefore cannot use your apartment for the first two months, then you have to furnish it, I would have expected to pay after 3 months. 2 at the earliest.

However. I think that the one month period will get the nod as not enough people will turn up to vote against it.  But you make a very good point about the budgets and rebates.

As responsible administrators, Resortalia will have raised the budget for the next FY to cover all projected costs and service contracts.

They will not have taken on all the facilities from PW yet.  Obviously the pools are yet to be handed over and the landscaping is probably being handed over in stages.  The same goes for cleaning and maintenance.  I fully expect that at the end of this year, the budget will be in credit as all the money will not have been spent.  That will then be the time to give owners a percentage rebate on what they have paid or a corresponding credit for the next years charges.

Community Meeting 23 June
Albahaca 4 (Phase 5B)

I have just been introduced to this site my neighbour, Len who it seems most people know.  As an Englishman living and working in Murcia for 6 years now, I will be living for a good part of the year in the Riquelme resort (nº194), and I would like to know if anyone in the Albahaca 4 block will be attending our meeting or send me a message if you would like me to let you know how we got on.  I would be willing to stand to represent our committee, however its not easy to contact people as Len mentioned in one of his posts, over the past 2-3 months, very few people have been around.  

Iain

This is clearly a key issue and one to which we should all apply some research and thinking. However, as I understand some of the posts meetings have already been arranged and some information presented re costs. I have yet to recieve any notifcation from either PW or Resortalia. Can someone please let me know how the notifications are going out? Hoepfully it's not to the 15 day collect or returmn mail service.

George

To get your info, email Pepa at:

info@resortalia.com

Hi All

We have just returned from Spain & are disappointed that we have been given such short notice re the intended Committee Meetings, as obviously this is a very important meeting & there is no way that we can now return to attend this. We are on Laurel 1 Phase 3  & our meeting is scheduled for the 18th June at 9.30am & we would like to know if there is anyone on the forum that will be able to attend & whether they would be interested in taking on this hugely important comitment. There is no way that we could contemplate taking on this commitment as we both already seem to work over 70 hours a week on average & so the thought of being appointed in the absence of a volunteer leaves me shaking!! I agree that it is hugely important to have individuals that are happy to take on this potentially massive commitment, as we will all be affected by the decisions made.

Our neighbour Sam (known as Stokie on the forum) will be attending, but not sure if he would be prepared to take this on. Any other feedback would be much appreciated.

I don't know if anyone attended HR's 1st barbecue, (unfortunately we couldn't attend), but apparently it was pretty  disasterous - they charged 18 euros & the beer was frothy & they ran out of food very quickly, & before a lot of people got served, which must have been very disappointing as it sounds as if quite a few people went!! Apparently the queue for refunds was pretty long! 

I have to say that HR is looking great, & I can't wait for the Town Centre to be built & for all the flowers & trees to get established. We do seem to have quite a few dead trees in our area though & I wonder if anyone has any idea as to whether these will be replaced in due course? Presumably, this would be 1 of the duties of the elected Committee!!

Jan

We will be attending the Phase 6 meeting on Monday 23rd June.  If there anyone else from Romero 6 going along please get in touch. 

Elaine & Mike

We will be attending the Phase 6 meeting on Monday 23rd June.  If there anyone else from Romero 6 going along please get in touch. 

Elaine & Mike

Hi Everyone

This is the first time I have posted but found this site just before we visited our apartment in Riquelme beginning of June.  We are ground floor on Romero 2, Phase 2.  I haven't read all the posts but have browsed through several and I believe we may have met Kenny outside our apartment when he was talking to Danny one of the keyholders.  Lennie, too, may have noticed us as the family there for the week next to the latest pool to be finished.

Overall we are very impressed with Riquelme.  We visited in April and found much progress had been made all around the resort by the time we visited again end May/June.  Not least the cranes and building work had disappeared adjacent to us and in it's place a lovely tiled pool surfaced (no water!).

During half term we noticed many more people around.  Our block was quite full!  Neighbours both sides, two immediately above and one second floor at the end of our block.  None of the people we met in our block were retired or resident but were going to use the apartments as holiday homes.

I read about the possible 100 euros monthly community charge.  I know without a doubt that my husband would agree wholeheartedly with Claire Oakes' mail further down that we have bought into the whole package with town centre and pools up and running and a certain standard having been obtained before paying any amount of community charge.  And anyway, 100 euros per apartment equates to approx 1.8 million euros a year which would seem a considerable amount of money for the upkeep of the roads, lighting, refuse collection, gardening etc without involving the town centre, pools and golf course upkeep.  Are we missing something I wonder?

As much as we believes HR is going to be fantastic and provide a challenging course, PW should really have completed the Town Centre before handing over on the apartments.   Still, I feel we have chosen the best of the Polaris resorts and that it just needs a couple more years to become properly established.  

I will pass on the website details of this forum to those I met within our block so that they can if they wish participate.

All the best and thanks to Lennie for the frequent informative updates
Susan

Hi everyone

I haven't been asleep, just working like a trojan at work in order to get on top of things so I can enjoy my 4 and a bit days when we come out from date 23rd to 27th June.   Nic has a point when comparing service charges, as we have a tenanted one bedroomed flat in Romford and our monthly service charge is over £100 a month and the view isn't as magnificent as those we all have from our terraces on Riquelme.   I think we all got on our 'high horses' because of delays in the building of the entertainment complex and  pressure to complete before we were ready (even though we should have all been ready had completions happened on the dates originally planned for most of us).   We too had some axes to grind but this hasn't made us waiver from looking forward to enjoying some time in this splendid resort.      

We are on Phase One and are sure that our community meeting is imminent but year-end work commitments meant we couldn't get out there until 23rd when our meeting will probably have taken place, but will be happy to gatecrash any meeting happening on either 24th, 25th or 26th June in order to get any information which will help us all make our communities work jointly and effectively.    Not yet actually living on the resort  and only managing to get over two or three times a year may make me an unsuitable candidtate to be a nominee, but I will be happy to do whatever I can to help.   Even though we will have our own communities we are not each separated by twelve feet high  fences so we are all out to reach the same goals which is to see the whole resort retain its splendour in the most cost effective way possible.

Sorry if I'm waffling......strain of being on the proverbial treadmill.....and that is why I have such high hopes for Riquelme at the Helm.  

Linda

 

Hi all,

Susan, I think there must be another Kenny as I haven't been out to HR for ages lol. However, I'm sure we will cross paths at some point as you appear to be in the holiday home camp, rather than a full time resident.

What I did pick up on is the total amount of community charges per annum we will be generating. Aside from any other differences of opinion the HR community may have regarding the charges I feel it is essential that our community reps make sure we get the absolute best value for our money.

This is why community representation is so important, otherwise we may end up being fleeced by some half baked management company who cream off a nice wedge for themselves at our expense. Do we have any subject matter experts or anyone with experience in ground maintenance within the community? If so your input would be very much appreciated.

I have a question to get the ball rolling. Do we have to use a management company under Spanish law / regs or can we contract the services we need seperately ourselves? I'm sure the latter would save us a packet. Once the initial contracts are in place it would not take much to monitor them to make sure we continue to get best value / service for money.

This way we could potentially also use any overspill from funds for projects for the good and benefit of the community. Just a thought. Anyone else have any ideas?

Ken. 

Thought someone may have posted by now but here’s the information I received re the Phase 1 AGM.  Hopefully it will put a few minds at rest. 

What follows is the gist of information received and I am grateful to the contributor for his time.  I have reserved comment until the end.

The meeting took about four and half hours and was held in Spanish and English.

In essence, Resortalia has been elected as the administration company.

The budget for 2008 has been approved. It is a budget and as such, we may come in under or over at year end.

In law, we are responsible for making contributions to that budget w.e.f. the month following completion, so if you completed on 15.01.08 for example, then the first payment falls due 01.02.08.

Polaris has, however, agreed to take the charge for Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec (2007), so for early completers, that's good.

The overall budget for the resort for 2008 is about €1.5M, this is portioned out by building and is calculated based on the percentage that each building is allocated at the Land Registry. Each apartment is then charged on a percentage basis, based on the square metreage, this is as detailed in the title deed, isn't negotiable and is the law.

The budget or plan for 2008 was set in 2007. At the end of the day, the bills have to be paid but the administrator won't pay any bill without a factura (invoice), so if the pool for your building isn't ready and no charges are being made in respect of up-keep, then that part of the budget won't get spent.

Election of presidents for each building was difficult because ideally, you need to be resident (so that you have eyes and ears on the ground, so to speak) and also be able to speak Spanish. For many buildings there was nobody to be elected or indeed wanted to be elected, despite the attempts of the administrator to encourage people to stand. I don't know about your building specifically but the meeting minutes should reflect this i.e. who your president is. For my building we have appointed the overall President of the resort (Polaris), although this can change at any time, should a suitable candidate wish to stand. The Polaris rep. will then stand down.

Hope that helps - a flavour of where we're at but any further questions should now be directed to the president of your building.

Well, there you have it and for those who are attending the future meetings, you can prepare your thoughts and questions.

PW are picking up early charges which is good.  I completed in November and spent a very enjoyable month on HR in Jan/Feb so cannot complain about paying from Jan 1.

Its good to see that services will only be paid for on invoice so that means payments from when the services started.  No pools – no invoice – no payment.  Presumably that will be the same for all the other services.

Interesting point about the actual payments. This does mean that we will be paying different amounts, so in my block the corner apartments should be paying more than the middle apartments – mainly through balcony space.  Can’t argue about the logic there.

Also re the block presidents, it seems that where there were no volunteers, PW took on the position but will stand down if someone puts themselves up for the post.  That too seems logical.

All we need now is to wait for the minutes to be distributed. 

Hi everyone

I was going to save posting this until a bit later in the day as we're still on HR and I'm having to use my Polaris Internet card so I was going to wait until we got home so I could write more at length. However, I thought I would just add a bit to what Harry and Helen have said as I was at the Phase 1 meeting and, being the only people there from Ajedrea 5, I am now the block prsident! Yes I did volunteer, although rather nervously. Blocks were taken in alphabetical order so our block was first. I'll write more details later on. I just wanted to say for now that what Harry and Helen have said is correct except for one detail and that is that the Block President for Phase 1 is not Mari Jose of Polaris but a guy called Jose Gonzalez or maybe Luis Gonzalez. Sorry my short-term memory for names is not good! He's a Spanish guy living permanently on HR and he speaks good English.

Anyway, watch this space for some more thoughts a bit later today.

Bye for now

Sally

Hi Sally,
Thanks for the added info.

My informant didn't mention the phase president, only the president of his block, so its good to know that we have a resident who was willing to stand for the phase.  The fact that he is living on HR is a bonus.

HarrynHelen,

Many thanks for your info from the meeting. Sounds very professional and fair.

Regards,

Ken.

 

Hallo folks - here are my further reactions to the Phase 1 meeting. I put this on the Polaris World Forum as well, hence the introductory bit at the beginning. If I've broken any EOS rules by doing that, please forgive me.

My partner and I completed on Phase 1 in December and, apart from one teething problem with the boiler, I think we have been lucky in comparison with some people.

As we now live in Spain, about an hour and half north east of HR, we are able to visit our appartment frequently. We were at our community meeting on Monday and, as we were the only people present from our block, I am now its president. As I speak fairly good Spanish and as we are not so far away it seemed a good thing to do. I have to say that out of the 30 or so people that were there from phase 1 there were a lot of people who were perfectly happy to criticise but not, when it came to the crunch, to stand up and be counted ie to be elected. This made me sad because surely, if you feel strongly about something, then you should put yourself in a position where you can do something about it. Come on folks, please do your bit to make this new community work. If you don't, then whilst a single appartment remains in your block then Mari Jose of Polaris World will be your president. I am sure she is a very nice lady but...

I have to say that I felt that Resortalia made a pretty good impression in spite of the general mood of scepticism at the meeting. Here are some of the points from that meeting which maybe have not been aired so far.

1) Resortalia are employees of our community. If we don't like them, we can get rid of them whenever we like and either run things ourselves or choose another management company. They were chosen by Polaris out of several but we don't have to stick with them.

2) Polaris are paying all community charges up to the end of December, or maybe January. Sorry I can't remember - it was a long morning! Otherwise you pay from the month after completion.

3) It says in the 'Welcome Pack' that moneys will be collected for 2008 in two chunks, July and September, and for 2009 quarterly in January, April, July and October. The Resortalia Administrator suggested that the 2008 amount should be divided into three chunks, July, September and November, and this was agreed.

4) People in the meeting found it difficult to grasp that the figure of approx 100€ per month is a budget and that at the end of the year there will be a reconciliation (Resortalia call it liquidation!) and that any surplus or shortfall will roll over into the next year. The money is used to pay actual invoices which we can demand to see and can question. If your pool, like ours, is not filled and working, then the pool company shouldn't be invoicing for it. We won't be paying for things we haven't had. Resortalia made a great point of total transparency. Maybe this is because they had their fingers burned  at LT and have learned from their mistakes. Let's hope so.

I'll probably remember other points as the day goes on so I'll post again when I think of them.

In the meantime, we shall be back at HR next week so I think I'll put o notice up on my block door to say who I am. I'll also put a flyer under each door in the block inviting people to contact me. If there are any other presidents who want to do the same thing and would like me to do a Spanish translation so that their message is in both languages, please let me know.

It's gonna be hot all this week!

Saltay many thanks for your input and dedication to community representation. 

I would reiterate your sentiments for those who choose to sit on the fence. The more voices we have the more influence we have. Easy for me to say I know, I'm in the holiday home club so will hardly be there, but perhaps we could use EOS to distribute the minutes and then have a feedback / proposals session after each meeting? Any proposals could then be voted on and brought up at the next meeting by one of the members present. 

I am pretty good with IT too and it would not take much to enable video conferencing for the meetings. This could all be done via skype or MSN. Even though I will be a silent partner in the main, I am keen to get stuck in so bear me in mind Saltay.

Me and the wife are probably going to come out some time between 4th - 14th August assuming all goes to plan so I will hopefully find your flyer and give you a buzz for a beer if you're around. 

Ken n Shell 

Thanks for your comments Ken & Shell. Look forward to hooking up in August maybe. I use Skype quite a lot so maybe video conferencing is a possibility. Are you in Ajedrea 5 then?

By the way, it's just been pointed out to me that Resortalia were not the management agents on La Torre. I thought somebody said they were. My mistake.

Sally

 Thanks everyone for the feedback on the meetings. We could not get over due to work commitments.
Anyone out there go from Phase 2 ? Our apartment block is Jengibre 2. Anyone from our block / phase get elected?

We are in Spain in July and August, so hopefully will be able to meet up with any folks by us.

Sally, no we are Phase 2 Cilantro 7. Ground floor 3rd from the left as you look at it from the front.

See you soon,

Ken.

 

Hi to everybody at hacienda 
This is my first post and i have a property on phase 1 estragon 2 and can anybody tell me if theres been any meetings and outcomes on this block would be appreciated,
also is there any committee members or even a president on this block, if not can anybody please tell me what would be involved i would love to help even tho am not ever there all the time,  i have also a four ball voucher from my welcome pack which i will unfortunately won't get chance to use before the expiry date for any resident that can make use of.
       Thanks,   stephen